Chapter 26

The dairy business continued to prove profitable to Gus, the cow remaining contented, loving and giving. One night, however, there came the inevitable reaction, and the gentle creature in the cow-shed felt the same stifling she had rebelled against on the night of the stampede when she had made her wild dash for liberty. Moved by these recollections, the sedate, orderly cow became imbued with a feeling of unrest, and demolishing the frail door was once more at large. In a frenzy of freedom she dashed about the yard. Her progress was somewhat impeded by contact with the surplice which, pinned to the clothes-line, was flapping in the breezes. Maddened by this obstruction which hung, veil-like, over her bovine lineaments, she gave a twist of her Texas horns, a tug, and the surplice was released, but from the line only; it twined itself like a white wraith about the horns.

Then the sportive animal frisked over the low back fence and across the hill, occasionally stepping on a released end of the surplice and angrily tearing her way through the garment. She made her road to the railroad track. That sight, awakening bitter memories of a packed cattle-car, caused her to slacken her Mazeppa-like speed. While she paused, the night express backed onto the side track to await the coming of the eastbound train. The cow, still in meditation, was silhouetted in the light of a harvest moon.

"This 'ere," a home-bound cattleman was saying to a friend on the platform, "is nigh onto whar we dropped a cow. I swar if thar ain't that blasted cow now, what? Know her from hoof to horn, though what kind of a Christmas tree she's got on fer a bunnit, gits me! Ki, yi! Ki, yi!"

At the sound of the shrill, weird cry, the animal stood at bay. Again came the well-known strident halloo. A maelstrom of memories was awakened by the call. Instinctively obeying the old summons she started toward the train, when from over the hill behind her she heard another command.

"Co, boss! Co, boss!"

The childish anxious treble rose in an imploring wail.

The cow paused irresolute, hesitating between the lure of the old life on the plains and the recent domestic existence.

"Co, boss!"

There was a note of entreaty, of affection, in the cry.

After all, domesticity was her birthright. With an answering low of encouragement the black cow turned and trotted amiably back to meet the little dairyman.

"Well, I'll be jiggered," said the cattleman, as the train pulled out. "I'd a swore it was old Jetblack. Maybe 'twas. She was only a milker anyway, and I guess she's found a home somewhere."

Gus with arm lovingly about the cow's neck walked home.

"Bossy," he said in gently reproaching tones, "how could you give me such a skeer? I thought I'd lost you, and I'd hev sure missed you--you, yerself--more'n I would the money your milk brings us."

Then for the first time, the lad's eyes noted the decorated horns.

"What in thunder--"

He began to unwind the ribbons of white cloth, the stringed remnants of the surplice.

"Gracious Peter! It's the surplus! What will Amarilly say--and Lily Rose? It's only fit fer carpet rags now. Well, if this ain't the end of the surplus after all it has went through! I wonder what bossy wanted of it? Thought jest cause she was a cow, she must be a cow ketcher, I suppose."

Great was the joy of the Jenkinses at the restoration of the cow, but there was grievous lament from Amarilly for the fate of the precious garment.

"It was our friend--our friend in need!" she mourned.

"I'm so glad we hev a picter of it," said Lily Rose, gazing fondly at the photograph of the Boarder in the saintly robes.

"I'll go and tell Miss King," said Amarilly the next morning. "She said she felt that the surplice would come to some tragic end."

"It was a fitting fate for so mysterious a garment," commented Colette. "You couldn't expect any ordinary, common-place ending for the surplice. After officiating at funerals, weddings, shop-windows, theatres, pawnshops, and bishops' dwellings, it could never have simply worn out, or died of old age."

"I don't see," meditated Amarilly, "what possessed the cow. She's been so gentle always, and then to fly to pieces that way, and riddle the surplice to bits! It was lucky there was nothing else on the line."

"It's very simple," said Colette. "I suppose she wanted to go to the train. Maybe she expected to meet a friend. And as nearly everyone else had worn the surplice on special occasions, she thought she could do the same; only, you see, never having been to church she didn't quite know how to put it on, and I suppose got mad at it because it didn't fit her and gave vent to her anger by trampling on it."

Amarilly's doleful little face showed no appreciation of this conceit.

"Don't look so glum, Amarilly. I have something to show you that will please you."

She opened a desk and took a thick, white square envelope from it, and handed it to the little girl.

Wonderingly Amarilly opened it and took out a folded, engraved sheet of thick paper. She read eagerly, and two little spots of pink came into her cheeks.

"Oh, oh!" she cried, looking up with shining eyes, which in another moment glistened through tears.

"Why, Amarilly, aren't you glad that I am going to be--"

"Mrs. St. John?" smiled Amarilly. "I think it's beautiful. And," anxiously, "you will surely be good to--him?"

"Yes," replied Colette softly "I will be good--very good--to St. John. Don't fear, Amarilly."

A card had fallen from the envelope. Amarilly picked it up and read:

"To be presented at the church."

"What's that?" she asked curiously.

"You have to show that at the church door. If you didn't have it, you couldn't get in to see us married. It's the same as a ticket to a theatre. And St. John doesn't like it; but if we didn't have them there would be a mob of curious people who don't know us. I shall give all of you tickets to come to the church, the Boarder and Lily Rose, too."

"Oh," cried Amarilly, "that will be lovely, and we shall all come."

"Of course you will all come. Your friend, the bishop, is to marry us, and Bud is going to sing a solo. The choirmaster told me his voice was developing wonderfully."

"I must go home and tell them all about it," said Amarilly excitedly.

"Wait! There's more to hear. I am going to invite you to the reception here at the house, and I am going to have a lovely white dress made for you to wear, and you shall have white silk stockings and slippers and white gloves."

"Oh!" gasped Amarilly, shutting her eyes. "I can't believe it."

The next morning at the studio she announced the wonderful news to Derry.

"I just received an invitation, myself," he replied. "We will go together, Amarilly. I'll send you flowers and call for you with a taxicab."

"Things must stop happening to me," said Amarilly solemnly. "I can't stand much more."

Derry laughed.

"When things once begin to happen, Amarilly, they never stop. You are to go from here now every day after luncheon to this address," handing her a card.

"'Miss Varley,'" Amarilly read. "'1227, Winter Street.' Will she have work for me, too?"

"Yes; work in schoolbooks. She takes a few private pupils, and I have engaged her to teach you. I really think you should have instruction in other branches than English and art and arithmetic."

Amarilly turned pale but said nothing for a moment. Then she held out her hand.

"I will study hard--to pay you," she said simply.

"And can you stand another piece of exciting news, Amarilly? Sunset, which I have dawdled over for so long, drew first prize."

"Oh, Mr. Derry, that is best of all!"

"And do you know what I am going to give Mrs. St. John for a wedding present from you and me? The picture of The Little Scrub-girl."